


caught between a rock and a hard place

by duCOQUELICOT



Series: Zutara Week 2020 [3]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Canon Divergence, Crystal Catacombs, F/M, He's not ready but he has no choice, Zutara Week, Zutara Week 2020, crossroads of destiny, inner turmoil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:34:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25569808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duCOQUELICOT/pseuds/duCOQUELICOT
Summary: Just when Iroh and Aang reach the belly of the Crystal Catacombs, the earth shatters. Katara and Zuko are cut off from their saviors, and from Azula as well. They'll have to work together to find a way out: is their uneasy, rather shaky alliance able to withstand the problems their journey will throw at them?
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Series: Zutara Week 2020 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1850281
Comments: 10
Kudos: 71
Collections: Zutara Week 2020





	caught between a rock and a hard place

**Author's Note:**

> **it's just me and some distant howl  
>  reaching for the big old moon  
> everything that I knew  
> changes so soon  
>   
> \-- Rogue Valley**

Her fingertips are cool on his skin, and rather soft. **  
**

He doesn't quite understand why he has allowed her to touch his scar at all, but here they are, and now it's too late to do anything about it anyway. Besides, if she really _can_ heal him, it's probably worth the unease for a little while.

Although, if he really looks deep inside himself, he can't find that particular unease. 

He closes his eyes, waiting for the world to change.

_BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR_

The world does change, but not the way he imagined it. Underneath them, the ground is shaking, throwing them both off balance. Zuko lands flat on his back, the girl falls on top of him. She stretches out her hands to break her fall, pushing her palms in his stomach. He groans.

"Sorry," she says as she scrambles to get back up again.

"It's not your fault." 

When he's back on his feet again, he scans the room. A large swath of rocks has come loose from the ceiling, probably because of the earthquake. He wonders if this happens more often, and if so, if they're in mortal danger if they stay down here.

"I think I hear something," the girl says. Zuko can't seem to remember her name, although he could swear he knows it. It's in the back of his mind, somewhere, along with that recipe for komodo chicken stew that Uncle has tried to teach him how to cook. 

She wanders to the wall next to the pile of rocks. He thinks about warning her about the possibility of another earthquake, but he changes his mind. She's not dumb. He doesn't know her _that_ well, but this much he knows.

Now, he can hear it too. Muffled screams, as if someone's on the other side of the wall.

"Aang!" screams the girl, banging her fists on the rocks. "Is that you? Can you hear me?"

Aang - that's the Avatar. The little boy that is somehow over a hundred years old, the one he should capture and bring back to the Fire Nation to regain his honor.

When he woke up this morning, that seemed to be part of another lifetime. Another person. But it is coming back to him now. And the more he thinks about it, the more his thoughts seem to split him down the middle. 

He could live a good life with his Uncle in Ba Sing Se. Or he could finally return to his own country, and be rewarded as a hero.

The girl is still banging on the wall. The voices on the other end are getting louder. 

"Zuko?" 

It's a little muffled, but his uncle's voice is unmistakable. He perks his ears and walks over to where the girl is standing.

"Katara!" he hears the voice of a child say. That's Aang, he thinks. And Katara - that's her. Now he remembers again.

"Uncle?" He slams his fist on the wall. "Uncle! What are you doing with the Avatar?"

Katara makes a face. 

"Is that Zuko?" the child says. "Katara, are you okay? Did he hurt you?"

"I'm fine, Aang. Zuko and I have… talked." 

She doesn't mention the spirit water, which surprises him.

"Stand back!" Aang yells. "I'm going to earthbend this wall away."

They both take a few steps backwards. The earth begins to rumble again, shaking so violently that Zuko has to hold himself steady against another wall. 

"Aang! Don't earthbend!" Katara exclaims as she runs back to where her friend is, narrowly avoiding rocks that are still coming down. She's pretty reckless, Zuko thinks. She doesn't even look up once.

"Why not?" 

"I think these tunnels are about to collapse," he says, speaking as loud as he can. "You should probably get away before this all comes down."

Katara looks at him with her eyes and mouth wide open.

"I'm not leaving you behind, Katara!" 

Aang again. 

"I'm going to earthbend-"

"No!" Katara slams both her fists against the wall. Zuko wants to say something about the danger of releasing even more debris, but he takes one other look at the girl and decides it's probably better to keep his mouth shut.

"Aang, don't do it! You're going to make it worse. Just go back to the surface, I'll find a way out of here. We'll find each other, I promise."

_Does that mean he has to go with her?_

"Uncle!" 

"Zuko! Try not to do anything reckless. We'll see you above ground."

"But what about Azula?"

The thought of having to fight Azula with the potential of being trapped underground forever is not something he is looking forward to. 

"Azula may very well be behind this ordeal. Just watch where you're going and try to take care of your company, as well."

Uncle means Katara. She catches him looking at her and folds her arms in front of her chest.

"Come on, we'll have to start moving. I don't think this is going to hold much longer."

He begrudgingly agrees. As it seems, they have no other option.

* * *

"So, now what?"

He scans the area for possible escape routes. This is something he excels at, for some reason. 

"It looks like the falling rubble created a pathway there," he says and points towards a dark corner at the far edge of their cell.

Katara squints. "Even if it is, I doubt we could fit through."

"It's not like we have a choice, do we?" he bites back. She's already getting on his nerves and it hasn't even been five minutes.

She doesn't say anything, but her lips form a thin line and she frowns. 

He walks closer and gets on his knees. With his hands, he moves away the rocks in front of what looks like an entrance to a tunnel. Katara is right: it's very narrow, and it doesn't look safe.

"You're right," he says, his voice barely above a whisper.

"What's that now?" She smirks. "Although I wouldn't have minded being wrong this time."

She gets down on her knees next to him and peers into the darkness. 

"If we don't find anything soon, we'll be buried alive," he says.

"Yes, I am aware, Zuko. You don't need to rub it in. Unless your plan was to worry ourselves to death, so we beat the falling rocks."

He can't help himself: he snickers.

Katara raises her eyebrows.

"You're the first person to laugh at my jokes."

"I won't do it again," he says and averts his eyes. He's not about to become friends with this girl. What just happened here, it doesn't count. It's nothing.

"We'll try the spirit water when we've made it above ground, okay?"

"Don't. You said you were saving it for something important. I'm sure there are things more important than me."

"Probably." 

_Does it sting that she agrees with him so readily?_

"But that doesn't mean that I don't think your scar is important, too."

Another rumble in the earth. This time, it seems to come from deep down inside. He's shaking so hard that Zuko feels his teeth shattering in his jaw. 

Katara gets up and reaches out her hand to help him on his feet. He hesitates. 

"Come on! We don't have all day!" 

He tries to put as little of his weight in her hands as possible. 

"Over there!" 

A large rock has moved, revealing a secret tunnel - a real one, this time. On any other day, only an earthbender could have moved this, Zuko thinks as they walk past it. 

"We have no idea where this is going. This could be leading us deeper into the catacombs for all we know," Katara says as they rush through. 

Zuko holds his hand up high, caressing a flame in his palm. It casts shadows on the tunnel wall. 

"No, this leads to the surface." He points at his flame. "Look, you see how it moves? That means there's fresh air coming from the far end of the tunnel."

In silence, they continue their journey. The tunnel is long, but comfortably wide enough for the two of them. He walks behind her and gives her light - she warns him for any protruding roots on the ground. 

_They'd make a good team if they weren't enemies._

After what seems like thirty minutes but could have easily been two hours, they see another light source in the distance. It's dim, but it's there. Both of them breathe a relieved sigh.

"We're almost out of here," Katara says, her voice laced with hope. "Aang will be waiting for us."

"Waiting for you," he corrects her. "Uncle will be waiting for me."

"Where are you going to go?" she asks. He glances aside, but she's not looking at him.

"I don't know. My sister will have taken Ba Sing Se by now." He curls his hands into fists. 

"You could come with us."

Zuko doesn't know what to say to that.

* * *

They reach the surface without any further problems. It's night time already, which confirms Zuko's theory that it had taken them at least a couple of hours to get out of the catacombs. 

The air around them is cool and crisp. Katara finds a puddle nearby and refills her flask with bending water. He watches her, and involuntarily, his mind goes back to the spirit water. 

_Maybe you could be free of it._

How could he ever be free of his destiny? 

"I wonder where Aang is," she muses. 

"How could they have known we'd come up here?" he asks, leaning against the stem of a tree. "They'll come, eventually."

"I'm not worried." 

She sits down on a large rock and gazes at the sky above them. It's filled with stars - Ba Sing Se is far behind them, the tunnels apparently spanning an enormous territory. 

"Do you want to try the spirit water now?"

Her question surprises him as much as it did the first time she proposed.

"I don't know." 

The timing seems _off_ somehow. As much as he wants to say yes, he can't. There's something gnawing away inside him, telling him to turn the other way. Leave this girl behind and run, back to Ba Sing Se, back to Azula, back to the Fire Nation.

If she heals him, he can't go back. Not ever. He will have sealed off that part of himself.

And Zuko is not ready to give that up. Not when he still has the chance to make everything right, slim as it may be.

"Don't you think we should start looking for them?"

The girl is restless. He doesn't blame her - he would probably be too, if he had a purpose. 

Agni, he _has_ a purpose. He just has to go back, find Azula, and beg her to take him with her.

But begging is beneath him. It was beneath him when he was a prince and it is beneath him now. Now, when he is no one.

_Never forget who you are._

But who is he? If Katara wasn't here with him, he'd scream into the void. 

She doesn't wait for his answer. "I'm going to start looking for them," she says, and gets up.

Zuko watches her movements as she starts making her way to the tall grass. It's thick and sharp, so she doesn't make much headway. His hands reach for his Dao swords, but remembers they were taken from him.

Slowly, she disappears, her figure becoming smaller in the field. He wonders if she's still within earshot. 

Should he go after her? Or should he go back?

Behind him lies his only chance to go back to the Fire Nation, although he has no idea how he's going to accomplish that. He'd have to kill the Avatar for Azula to take him with her as her brother instead of a prisoner.

And does he even _want_ that anymore?

Ahead is Katara, a girl he hardly knows except for the fact that she's a pretty good waterbender who has a tendency to whoop his ass. 

But apparently, there's more to her than meets the eye.

He's going to have to make a decision soon, and there's no one to help him decide. He'll have to do this on his own.

"Hold on."

She hears him, and stops.

Zuko follows the path Katara has made before him.

"I'm coming with you."

**Author's Note:**

> As always, if you like it enough you'd want it to continue, please let me know :)


End file.
